DriveSmartBC

According to the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit "motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of unintentional injury death across all ages in BC.

This issue of the Status Report looks at how long it takes a new safety feature will be present in the majority of vehicles on our highways actually incorporate these features. One example is front air bags which were first introduced in the mid - 1980's and it is estimated that they will reach the 95% inclusion level in 2016.

A new Road Safety Monitor (RSM) poll by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) shows that a majority of young Canadian drivers are aware that they cannot drive safely after drinking alcohol. The public opinion poll conducted in September 2010 investigated a variety of drinking and driving behaviours and attitudes among youth including riding with a drinking driver.

This study released by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is based on a small group of teen drivers using a vehicle equipped with an event data recorder called Drivecam.

Human error is responsible for between 75% and 90% of crashes, but this report from Australia suggests that the system that a driver makes the error within needs to be more carefully examined. The system either contributes to the error or shapes the driver's behaviour that produces the error.

This report describes the alcohol-crash problem in Canada during 2008. It examines: data on alcohol in fatally injured drivers and pedestrians; the number and percent of people who died in alcohol-related crashes; and alcohol involvement in those crashes in which someone was seriously injured but not killed.

I am frequently asked why school buses don't have seatbelts. The Alabama School Bus Seat Belt Pilot Project put seatbelts in school buses and studied their benefits. The study found a wearing rate of just under 62%. This resulted in, on average, saving 0.13 lives and 7.60 injuries per year.

Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program (CTBSSP) Synthesis 18: Older Commercial Drivers: Do They Pose a Safety Risk? explores age-related changes in the basic functional abilities needed to drive safely. The report is designed to help assist industry and labor practitioners in promoting safer commercial operations.

This report produced by the US Transportation Research Board's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) explores human factors principles and findings for consideration by highway designers and traffic engineers.

The R.C.M.P.'s collision reconstruction program in B.C. contains a research component. This video illustrates vehicle rollover testing that was conducted in Terrace, B.C. In this video, a car is dumped off a specially built platform at a right angle to its path of travel.